Raphaël Dumas (ME-1)
"The Lord forgives everything, but I'm but a humble soldier of Christ, so I don't have to." Early Life The Order of Purity Rebranding "The sacred Order of Purity was crumbling, and rotten. It had lost its way... we were founded in pursuit of great knowledge, but our leaders merely used our reach and power for their own gain. As with the Flood, and Sodom and Gomorrah, the good Lord knows how to weed out corruption. He had deemed me our new saint. And given me this glorious burden." '' Bird of Prey Season 3: The Fires of Dumas Episode 1?: The War on Christmas Episode 2?: Reformation of Violence Episode ?: Anarchy Episode ?: Vilification (You Walk This Path Alone) Episode ?: The Fires Will Consume You Knight Owl was on the verge of a breakthrough with the case, and was then attacked by one of the Order's soldiers, Azrael. Episode ?: Bonfire of the Necessities Final Episode ?: 38:7 Personality ''"I come bearing the word of God, and that word is...begone" Relationships Knight Owl "How many more bones would you crush? How many lives will you destroy in pursuit of what you call justice before you realize you are guilty of everything you claim to hate us; destruction, intolerance, cruelty... All that remains is for you admit your folly, and pray for forgiveness" Powers and Abilities Powers Lazarus Enhancement Dumas has lived for several centuries thanks to his use of Lazarus Pits which he has used numerous times over centuries replenishing his aged, injured, or even dead body. As a side effect to numerous exposures to the pits his strength, speed, stamina, agility, and durability has been enhanced. Longevity Through the use of the Lazarus Pit, Dumas has acquired a greatly extended lifespan, allowing him to live a near immortal life for over eight hundred years. However, he can still be killed and physically wounded. He cannot succumb to any medical diseases, nor does he age conventionally, but he still requires food, water, and oxygen to survive. Enhanced Strength Repeated exposure to Lazarus has enabled Dumas to push his body past normal human limits, making him stronger than the finest Olympic athlete. He has consistently demonstrated the ablity to sustain lifts of one thousand pounds. his strength also extends to his legs, enabling him to leap twenty feet out in a single bound and ten feet into the air without a running start. He can snap steel handcuffs and chains, throw a sword with enough force to impale a human to a wall, and is capable of breaking through wooden walls and steel doors with a single strike. Enhanced Speed Dumas can move at speeds equal to that of the absolute finest human athlete, capable of running at a sustained thirty-five miles-per-hour. Enhanced Stamina Dumas' body eliminates the excessive build-up of fatigue-producing chemicals in his muscles, granting him exceptional endurance and lung capacity. He can exert himself at peak capacity for a hour without any rest and before showing any signs of fatigue. Enhanced Agility His agility is greater than that of an Olympic gold medalist. He can coordinate his body with balance, flexibility, and dexterity. He was able to move just quick enough to catch a bullet, however it did damage him. Enhanced Durability His bones and muscles are denser and harder and so are amplified to the highest human potential, making him very durable. He is durable enough to the point that when Knight Owl hit him with his staff, the staff broke and Dumas displayed little discomfort. He also demonstrated the ability to take multiple close-range gunshots with little evidence he recognized that he was shot. Accelerated Healing Dumas' healing speed and efficiency is at the highest limits of human potential, which means he can heal faster than most humans. The white blood cells and in his body are efficient enough to fight off any microbe, foreign body, and other pathogens from his body, keeping him healthy and immune from all infections, diseases, disorders, etc. He furthermore cannot become intoxicated by alcohol, drugs (not that he partakes), or impurities in the air, and is thus immune to terrestrial diseases. Superhuman Senses Dumas' five natural senses have been enhanced. He can see, hear, smell, feel, and taste things imperceptible to humans. This allows him to see further, hear with amazing clarity, detect specific persons, objects, substances with his smell, etc. Superhuman Reflexes Dumas' reflexes are beyond human potential, which allows him to dodge rapid gunfire in close range. His auto-reflexes allow him to easily dodge gunfire and respond quickly to fast pace combat. People are subdued by him before they can even align their weapons on him. His immense reflexes can also be used to attack and counter instead of just defensive purposes, allowing him to punish attacks with devastating counters when fighting extraordinary quick opponents. Abilities Swordsmanship Archery Buisness Management Multilingualism Disguise Weaknesses Lazarus Dependency While continued exposure to Lazarus has granted Dumas superhuman abilities, he has become dependent on it to not only maintain said abilities, but also his ability to live at all. If he does not regularly bath in the chemicals of the Lazarus Pit (at least once a day for hours at a time), he grows significantly weaker. If he were to go one day without bathing in a Pit, he loses the vast majority of his abilities. By day two he begins to show signs of rapid aging. He has never gone two days without exposure to Lazarus for fear he would die. Author's Note It's no secret I'm not a religious person. In fact, its one of the many things that inform my character. I'm not the kind of person to demonize religious people, but I think every "western" religion is and has always been obsolete and false at best, barbaric and harmful at worst. I think we are fortunately living in a time when fundamental religious fervor is in decline, and secular ideals are dominating the influential societies on the globe, but not a lot of people realize/agree with this. People considered "intellectual" genuinely believe that the dominate cultures are substantively influence by the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and/or Islam, and that fundamentalism is in some way a distortion. The point of Raphaël Ignatius Dumas is to show a fundamentalist Christian: he is a true believer who at least tries to follow the ethics espoused by the bible to the letter. The reason for this is twofold: First and foremost is to critique the common religious argument favoring their own ethics and claiming non-religious people are incapable of being moral, or in some way require the morality of religions; Dumas' ethics will be very different to the secular morals we employ today, which Knight Owl will be one of the models of. The second is to remind many people on my side of the conversation that Islam is not an especially violent and barbaric religion, simply because the terrorists that dominate the news today are Muslim. The Christian religion is just as capable of producing violent fundamentalists. I also want to examine the fact that even religious people acknowledge the fundamentalists are bad, but that's somehow not an indictment on the religion itself. That reminds me of a quote from a person I no longer remember the name of who said: if a religion was ultimately about peace, brotherhood, etc, then its fundamentalists would be the most peaceful, kind, etc of all, yet the Abrahamic fundamentalists are not. I realize that there are evil Buddhists, Hindus, etc, but as someone who as studied the Abrahamic religions extensively (save for Islam although I have read portions), and Eastern religions like Buddhism, I can say a fundamentalist Buddhist does not harm others. I plan to give religious people credit with other characters that are generally more reasonable and kind, but the impetus of Dumas and Season 3 of The Bird of Prey in general is to tell a side of a story that doesn't get told often: Religions are bad. There is evidence to suggest this, and people that hold the hypothesis, and In a world where religious people (who are the majority of the planet by a longshot) have a persecution complex, I want to tell the story of a skeptical freethinker, combating fundamental religious zealot. Trivia *Raphaël the French form of the Hebrew name רָפָאֵל (Rafa'el) which meant "God has healed." **This name symbolizes his advanced healing and longevity, caused by his use of the element he dubbed Lazarus. *Ignatius is a male given name of presumed Latin or Etruscan origin, believed to mean "fiery one." **This serves as a double entendre symbolizing both the title of the season he premiers in: "The Fires of Dumas," and the stereotypical "fire and brimstone" Christian that Dumas and his order represents. *Dumas is a reference to Batman villain, Azrael, and the organization he works for: The Sacred Order of Saint Dumas. **It is a Southern French topographic surname, with fused preposition and definite article du, for someone who lived in an isolated dwelling in the country rather than in a village, from Occitan mas 'farmstead' (Late Latin mansum, mansus). Category:Created by RoninTheMasterless Category:ME-1 Category:Males Category:Versions of Azrael Category:Original Characters Category:Naturally Enhanced Biology Category:Artificially Enhanced Biology Category:Europeans Category:Americans Category:Sword Wielders Category:Bow Wielders Category:Armor Users Category:Lazarus Users (ME-1) Category:Enhanced Condition Category:Enhanced Strength Category:Enhanced Durability Category:Enhanced Stamina Category:Enhanced Senses Category:Advanced Longevity Category:Decelerated Aging Category:Tactical Analysis Category:Multilingual Category:Acting Category:Weapons Experts Category:Expert Combatant Category:Heterosexual Characters Category:Healing Factor Category:Öksökö (ME-1) Category:Villains Category:Terrorists Category:Criminals Category:Murderers Category:Vigilantes Category:Independently Wealthy Category:Metahumans Category:Metahumans of ME-1